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Scientific Innovation: Tools and Techniques

Medical treatments and other innovations are often possible only after decades of less-publicized progress in developing novel techniques for measurement and manipulation. We support this work understanding that future scientists will build on our progress.

Scientific Innovation: Tools and Techniques is one of six thematic areas within Scientific Research.

Our Work

Grant 11/2017
University of Washington — Universal Flu Vaccine and Computational Protein Design (David Baker and Neil King)
$11,367,500

The Institute for Protein Design seeks to better predict protein properties, which could lead to helpful applications in both human and animal health, such as facilitating faster creation of antiviral therapies in the event of a pandemic outbreak.

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Grant 9/2020
University of California, Los Angeles — Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (2020)
$2,250,000

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant to the University of California, Los Angeles, to support the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC).

Press 1/2019
Watch: ‘Taste of the future’: New microscopy technique captures stunning images of a fly’s brain
from STAT

Two teams of researchers, one of whom is an Open Philanthropy grantee, have married their techniques to capture the nooks and crannies of a fruit fly brain and the mouse cortex in stunning detail.

Press 10/2018
Meet the Biochemist Engineering Proteins From Scratch
from Discover Magazine

After revolutionizing the study of proteins — molecules that perform crucial tasks in every cell of every natural organism — David Baker is now engineering them from scratch to improve on nature.

This article features our grantee.

Grant 10/2018
Duke University — CRISPR-Based Epigenome Editing Tools (Charles Gersbach)
$2,550,171

The Open Philanthropy Project recommended a grant of $2,550,171 to Duke University to support research to develop CRISPR-based epigenetic tools to interrogate thousands of regions of DNA, allowing for more nuanced studies of genomic regions.

Press 3/2018
Protein Engineering May Be the Future of Science
from Bloomberg

Applications include a vaccine to protect against all strains of the flu, a system to break down gluten to help people with celiac disease, and proteins that help convert solar energy to fuel.

We have supported research in this area.

Grant 2/2018
MIT Synthetic Neurobiology Group — Brain Mapping Research (Ed Boyden) (2018)
$3,000,000

Expansion microscopy could make it possible to visualize neural cell connections at a much lower cost than is possible with existing technology, with potentially dramatic implications for a variety of sub-fields within brain research.

Press 1/2018
A Neurobiologist Thinks Big — and Small
from Quanta Magazine

MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden, our grantee, hopes to decode all of biology and achieve human enlightenment. But he also has his eye on the path that will get him to each goal.

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